Uninterruptable power supplies (UPSs) have served the data center and the industrial industry for many years. These UPSs are often implemented upstream of the network equipment, towards a facility's power entrance, and may be positioned in a centralized fashion to service an entire data center facility. Typically, 480 V (volt) AC (alternating current) is converted to DC (direct current) where batteries are used to store the energy. At a later time, the stored DC voltage is re-converted back to AC voltage for distribution throughout a facility. There is a trend in the industry to distribute this UPS functionality down to the individual racks of a data center in an attempt to obtain improved energy efficiency. Other benefits of this distribution can include capital savings, improved scalability, and improved system reliability. However, at least one of the disadvantages of this technique is that battery packs that are associated with individual racks often require maintenance as well as replacement after a relatively short lifetime.
Another trend in the industry is the replacement of traditional batteries with supercapacitors. These supercapacitors can have improved lifetime as compared to common batteries (e.g., 5 times the lifetime of a typical battery) and can result in improved performance versus batteries in a distributed UPS architecture.
The combination of these two trends leads to the opportunity for the development of a supercapacitor-based UPS for use in facilities such as data centers and industrial facilities.